Considering that Trump took the unprecedented move to move the US embassy to Jerusalem to both prove how he was more supportive of Israel's right-wing regime than any other US President and also to hard troll the Palestinians and considering his actions in the US with his "Muslim ban" and more, I think it's quite reasonable to believe the situation would have been measurably worse had he been the President. I don't think you can compare to other situations (Yemen, Syria). You can only compare based on what both previously did re: Israel-Palestine and then make a rational guess on how the two Presidents would have differed. Because of the reasons I stated above, I think double the death toll is a pretty reasonable guess of how much more brutal it could have been. That doesn't mean that Biden has been a successful moderating factor in any way. It just means that Trump has zero incentive for that and IMO cares less about the Palestinians than any President the US has had. I think Trump would have been quicker in sending Israel more bombs and material support in the last few months as well. So while of course we don't "know", I find it irrational to believe Trump would not have been materially worse for the situation.
2024 U.S. Elections | Trump v Harris
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Considering that Trump took the unprecedented move to move the US embassy to Jerusalem to both prove how he was more supportive of Israel's right-wing regime than any other US President and also to hard troll the Palestinians and considering his actions in the US with his "Muslim ban" and more, I think it's quite reasonable to believe the situation would have been measurably worse had he been the President. I don't think you can compare to other situations (Yemen, Syria). You can only compare based on what both previously did re: Israel-Palestine and then make a rational guess on how the two Presidents would have differed. Because of the reasons I stated above, I think double the death toll is a pretty reasonable guess of how much more brutal it could have been. That doesn't mean that Biden has been a successful moderating factor in any way. It just means that Trump has zero incentive for that and IMO cares less about the Palestinians than any President the US has had. I think Trump would have been quicker in sending Israel more bombs and material support in the last few months as well. So while of course we don't "know", I find it irrational to believe Trump would not have been materially worse for the situation.
No, they have disappointed me many many times, but we all have out "red lines". I voted a few times for a party that now defends russia, they will never get my vote again. The party I currently vote for has been pretty consistent in all the things I consider red lines. They sometimes compromise on budgeting issues but I can live with that because it means other things get done.
I live in a normal country, so people can't have guns, women can do what they want with their bodies and fascist criminals are put in jail.
How else do you convince the one party that actually has delegates who stand for what you believe in to put them forward? By showing them that they lose the election if they select centrists (centre rights frankly by global standards)
Right now the assumption is it’s our side that always has to compromise to keep the big bad out. Why don’t you start compromising if you covet our votes so much
Right now the assumption is it’s our side that always has to compromise to keep the big bad out. Why don’t you start compromising if you covet our votes so much
Btw FYI I’m not an American - I’m French of Pakistani descent living in the UK - sharing my states based friends and families stance that not only mirrors mine but which if extrapolated and not regarded as an echo chamber (which it may be but the diversity of people involved indicates otherwise) - it’s a significant number of people contemplating taking the L and sitting these elections out. Right to abortion is literally the only reason these people may hold their nose and vote for Biden
This would suck in so many levels. But in the end would be a reflection of what america is as now everybody knows who Trump is so there is no excuses. Fool me once...
Tbf “you can't get fooled again.”
But is on me (america)
Well, the vast majority of polls say RFK Jr takes away more from Trump, so i will take this one with some scepticism.
If a person can't even say what Hamas did was wrong then you can't have a reasonable conversation with that person. That's the issue that seems to be bringing all of this about. Once people are on the same page on Hamas, it's easier to coalesce and go after Netanyahu and his right wing extremists for the genocidal acts they are also perpetrating. Netanyahu clearly doesn't respect Biden or his opinions and so it's in the administration's best interest to finally break with them on the Gaza campaign.
This would be a stronger example if Biden hadn't agreed to keep the embassy there. As it stands it's another example of why people don't see as much distance between these two.
In 2019, Pompeo announced that settlements are not incompatible with international law...and this administration hasn't bothered to rescind that statement. Or the long-standing tax-exempt status of "charities" that donate to these settlements. It has also firmly supported the abraham accords being expanded to saudi arabia. And finally, it facilitated the formation of this govt in Israel by removing Ben-Gvir's former party from the list of terrorist organisations.
Who are these people exactly?
But Biden hasn't revoked that decision has he? He's kept the embassy there. I also don't know what the muslim ban has to do with this particular topic.
My question was based on a pretty simple premise. That Trump would have allowed this war to get more brutal. So I asked exactly how much more brutal can a war get in 2 months, considering the sheer extent of destruction, barring a nuke or a Rwanda style genocide. Once we're at the stage of talking about killing 1 in every 100 vs 1 in every 50 people in a territory over 2 months, we're reaching Stalinesque 1 death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic territory.
I'm not going to pat someone on the back because they've convinced the nutter chopping off my leg to chop just below the knee, as opposed to just above the knee. Either way they're chopping my leg off and we're just talking grades of awfulness.
This isn't to speak for domestic policies at all, where Biden is clearly infinitely better than Trump. Nor is it to say that people shouldn't vote for Biden in the next election. Its just to say that for those of us who aren't American and who don't have a grossly pro-Israeli viewpoint, its funny to see this perception that Biden has actually been a help to the Palestinians in this. Sure, maybe not as bad as Trump could hypothetically have been but 90% displaced vs 93% displaced......at that point, its a big shrug of the shoulders for me really.
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Many parts of political twitter and discourse in the US on the left, which has been surprising to me
He's a nutter. Also, fully discounting all his political positons, noone who talks like that can be elected president. I know it's a medical conditition, and it doesn't speak to his character or positions, but he constantly sounds like he's about to cry.
he should be a stand-up not a president
e - fake
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The problems go much deeper than Trump V. Biden. Anyone with a scant level of intelligence that Trump is narcisstic maniac.
The problem lies in the fact that the country is careening down a steep hill towards cliff because coporate power controls everything.
People look to cite the Dow Jones Industrial Index when the reality is that the DJIA is only meaningful to a very small perctnage of the populous who have positions in the market.
The other problem is that people love to spout unemployment rates with no context and no historical knwoledge that the unemployment rate that is contantly quotes is a figure used to deceive the public. he first unemployment rate used was done to obfuscate the real unemployment rate in the United and has bene every since. The rate quoted is U3 the correct rate is U6. U3 is 3.7 and U6 is 6.7%.
The other issue is that the power of the government is Congress, the presiden can veto bills, but congress can defeat the veto. Because Trump is so evil people are literally telling vote for this genocidal freak instead of the Megalomaniac. Congress exists solely to enrich itself and sede power to the welathy to develop their own laws or strike down laws on the books so the mega corps can do what they what with no interference and no challenge.
The problem the US is not a democracy. Itis a plutocratic kleptocracy. The US. has the worst healtcare system of all developed nations unless you are rich. The leading cause of bankruptcy is medical bankruptcy and by a massive margin.
We also get 10 days off a year. We allow chemicals in the food that no other developed nation allows. America unleashed PFOAs that everyone in the world has.
Why do I mention all of this stuff, because either way things go bad. If Biden is re elected he's still committing genocide in 12 countries. We still have a Congress that is passing resolutuons left and white to test the waters for a white supremacy state. Women are being told they cannot have an abortion even though she's putting her life on the line for an unviable baby. The Wealth disparity continues to increase dramatically.
With Trump he just sets the whole thing ablaze. For someone like me who is an anarcho-syndicalist the whole system needs to be razed. Capitalism does not work and has never worked. it's just good a getting a few people rich from consumerism and exploitation. The sociopaths are winning and the honest good hearted people are being pushed to their limit.
Either way the U.S. falls apart.
P.S. Please understand I am furious that we are in this position.
Wrong is relative concept. Everyone agrees that it is wrong on a general sense; however that completely ingores the context of the situation.
Say you are a Palestinian kid and a father in the neighborhood is killed by an Israeli solider. Ok sure it's awful but it's just a guy who you might have seen.
A week goes by and the lady you buy pasteries from down the street is murdered and her house is taken by settlers.
It's very unsettling and you're upset because you had a relationship with the woman. She said hello you talked with your parents and she snuck you an extre pastery opr gave you a bunch of pasteries they would have normally thrown out.
Two weeks go by your cosuin is sniped.
Of course at some point the people would rise up and commit acts of violence. People are having their homes taken at the will of a random Israeli person being shot at, murdered, illegally detained, tortured for the simple reason that they are Palestinian.
So while I don't condone what Hamas did, it's compeltely understandable.
It's like one person beating up someone much smaller and weaker and that much smaller and weaker person tells their family goes and gets a bunch of other people and they go beat the crap out of the original perpetraitor.
The original perpetraitor starts crying saying I'm the victim, which is ridiculous because the original perp started the whole thing. They warranted getting beat up.
Hamas has only existed since 1987 and it was created with the help of Netanyahu and Israel. 10/7/23 was an explosive (no pun intended) reaction to 75+ years of ethnic cleansing, genocide, and oppressive subjugation of an indigenious people. Israel has nnot right to play victim and even from a legal perspective they have no right to defend itself against Palestine because Palestine is being oppressed by Israel. Palestine has no army, no sovreignty and they don't even control the basic necessities for existence, such as food water and electricity.
@Iker Quesadillas
I dont see not moving back the embassy as equivalent because of bureaucratic inertia. It's a much bigger move to change something than to do nothing and keep something like that as is. Sure, you can say Biden didn't make as big a move as Trump in the opposite direction but I wouldn't say not moving through embassy back is the same as Trump moving the embassy in the first place. Plus, the issue had almost entirely receded. Tail end of COVID plus Russia invading Ukraine and there wasn't really anyone pushing Biden on the embassy issue.
You asked how much more brutal the war could be and I gave what I see as reasonable. That with Trump, the death toll would.be even greater, up to twice as many would be plausible. Not living in the US, you might not realize how rabid and bloodthirsty Trump's base here actually is, even in a liberal state like California. While Biden's base might not be very effective in pushing him to moderate Israel, at least his base is trying to push him in that direction. Trump's base would be pushing him in the exact opposite direction, to the extreme.
Imo its got nothing to do with bureaucratic inertia. Biden is simply a insanely pro Israel guy.
Presidents rarely get pushed by their base as part from not voting there is no mechanism to hold them accountable or to change their policy. What voters want and political outcomes are almost completely detached.
But even with said half of Republicans voters support a ceasefire -
https://www.reuters.com/world/us-pu...rity-backs-ceasefire-reutersipsos-2023-11-15/
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So people who are essentially totally irrelevant to the actual political conversation then?
How are these random idiots relevant to what Biden is doing now, where he offers full cover to Israel in every way, dehumanises Palestinians by suggesting their casualty numbers are made up and making up shit about how the reason Hamas didn't realise more hostages is because they raped them?
I'm not sure we need to get Sally the champagne socialist doing a political science major at Brown to get on board with her opinion on Hamas before we can try to rein Netanyahu in.
Again, I'm not saying that they're equivalent actions. Fundamentally however, that's still the reality. He had thew option of reversing it but has chosen not to.
My impression (and you can correct me if I'm wrong on this, you'll know more) is that a lot of Trump's base is actually relatively isolasionist and don't necessarily want to get involved in wars that aren't as relevent to the USA. I also didn't say that things couldn't get more brutal, I even gave 2 such options. My point I guess then is that we've already seen such an insane level of destruction in such a little period of time, that extra levels of brutality are almost a bit meh at that point. 93% displaced vs 90%, 70% housing stock destroyed vs 65%, 2% vs 1% of the population killed. We're talking about such insane numbers already that you almost just become numb. And certainly not something where I'd be congratulating the person helping to oversee the former situation.
Plus, as above, even half of Repubs now want to see a ceasefire. Which Biden is still against.
No one is "congratulating" Biden, ffs. Just commenting that with Trump the situation could likely be even worse since you asked if things could be more brutal. I think they could have been more brutal. That's it.
They are isolationist in one sense but also fairly firm about the whole "Israel has a right to defend itself" line. Plus they are definitely more racist and don't sound like they give a feck about how many die. Also, I have literally overheard a few random "nuke the whole Gaza strip" type comments which isn't something I've heard from any Democrats.
Also @Sweet Square the last poll I saw was 76% of Dems support ceasefire and 49% of Reps. Not the issue with the biggest gap but a gap nonetheless and likely not coming from the die hard Trumpers, more the Nikki Haley types.
What makes him a nutter?
People who are out protesting and chanting Hamas’ actions are always justified and some who escalate it to shouting for death to Jews?!
One of the previous posters wrote about how people are protesting since they support “democracy” and are against “fascism” and “foreign interference”. The ironical thing is that Israel is the democracy and Hamas is the one propped up by foreign interference as part of Iran’s axis of resistance and the organization against minorities/women/LGBTQ etc.
Hamas is a terrorist organization and Oct 7 was timed to prevent further normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which while being cold geopolitics, would have been great for peace in the Middle East.
You need to target both Hamas and Netanyahu’a failing administration, but that is a very hard ask for a foreign power in the US.
Well, for one he is an anti-vaxxer who has also spread some insane conspiracy shit about Covid. Even several of his siblings have publicly come out against him.
That's precisely it. Moving the Embassy is a significant undertaking and once it was done, there was next to no chance it would be undone since the Israeli government were vehemently supportive of it.
Oh. It works for me (on desktop chrome) by pressing the hyperlink "date". But yes otherwise it's not showing up.
Yes, that works for everyone. The usual embedding feature has been disabled by Musk apparently, which sort of defeats the purpose.
It’s crazy how many American liberals dislike him based off of his vaccination beliefs, like that actually means anything in the grand scheme of things. He’s done more work for the environment than all of the current liberal politicians combined, whilst wanting to put an end to lobbying and the rigged political system that currently exists, and you all hate him, being branded as a nutter.
Yeah, all whilst promoting vaccines cause autism bs, china engineered the virus to kill us all, bill gates and vaccines bs, us help is bad for ukraine, transgender people only exist because chemicals, school shootings it's because kids take anti depressants, etc. Yeah very normal guy and really the kind of leader the greatest army in the world needs at it's command.
But yeah, feckin liberals...
Yep, it's not like millions have died recently due to a POTUS' vaccination belief. It means nothing in the grand scheme of things. The important thing is that we have a Kennedy ready to drain the swamp of political and economic elites.
Or something, I don't know how to white text
I'm not American, and I don't hate him. I just think he is a nutjob opportunist that has no business running for the presidency, or spouting all the bullshit that he spouts.
Back with the Nazi euphemisms...
Fecking hell, I stay away from this thread for a few days and I come back and it's gone to hell in a handbasket!